December 30, 2013
Dear Family,

Hello everyone! It's definitely weird seeing as how we just talked to each other just a few days ago. To be perfectly honest I don't really have a lot of things to report on. Definitely the most eventfull thing that has happened since we have talked is that we went and watched the Hobbit!!! We saw it on a super huge and nice IMAX screen. We got perfect seats for it too. Couple of rows from the back, right in the middle. It was perfect!! The movie was FANTASTIC!!! I really wish I saw the first one to catch up on what happened before but oh well. I mean, I will be back home before the third one gets out so I will just have a nice movie marathon and watch them all! But yeah the rest of my week was just pretty typical. On sunday I had to give an "on the spot" talk about how we were grateful as missionaries to have been able to go and sing carols to the members. To be honest, it was a terrible "talk". I wasn't prepared and had no idea what to say. I mean, it's hard making speeches on the spot in english let alone in a different language! But it's all good. I also got to translate for sacrament meeting which was okay. Translating is always hard but what can I do. I also got to teach sunday school. Basically all of sunday was done by me!! Ha ha but it was all good! I'm glad that you got to have a nice little chat with Lasater at his homecoming!! He is awesome. It was weird saying goodbye to him cause he told me that in just a couple of days he would be talking face to face with all of you back at home!! It's crazy!! 

We'll I'm sorry everyone that I don't have a lot to say... I mean we just talked on Skype not too long ago so I hope you all don't mind! :) 

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Well here are a couple of pics taken around Christmas!

One shows our nice little Christmas corner where we had a tree and the presents . . . and the lights hanging from the giant tv (that we can't use :( sad day)

Then the other ones are just me and the onesie!! :) 

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

M E R R Y    C H R I S T M A S   F R O M    R O M A N I A!!

We had a wonderful time talking to Elder Josh Barney on Skype.  He is doing great and enjoyed Christmas Day.  Here are a few pictures we took as we were talking to him!!  ENJOY!!

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Dear Family!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!! Wow it's just crazy that Christmas is already here. It's the last one away from everyone!!! Thanks for letting me know about the skype account. I love the user name!! Classic!! I'm still not 100% sure on exactly when we are going to be Skyping. I'm assuming that it will just be on Christmas day around the afternoon/evening but I'm not sure. We are having difficulties finding a computer with a camera on it. The internet cafe we usually go to isn't going to be open on Christmas so we are trying to use some computers that are at the Church. But we will see what happens. When I call you guys I will let you know for sure. Actually I just talked to the others and I guess we are going to be able to do it at the church on Christmas. Elder Duker is going to be starting his at like 3 or 4 in the afternoon and then I'm going to skype you guys whenever he gets done. So I would say that I will be starting my skype session with you guys at like 5 or 5:30. So for you guys that would be around 8 or 8:30. So just make sure your computer is all ready to go by like 8 and then we will just see what happens!

That's awesome that you are going to be going to Lasater's homecoming! You will have to tell him that I say hi. I'm sure he will tell you all about cool stuff in Romania. Oh and I'm sure that Hannah will just give a talk in the coming weeks (muahaha!)

So some things that happened with me this week; I had a pretty awesome exchange with an elder named Elder French! He is from Cedar City, which is cool cause that's just a hop and a skip away from us! He is actually a pretty cool kid too. I'll probably hang out with him a little bit when he get's off the mission (he still has like a year and a half or so). This week we also had a cool opportunity to go to the United States Embassy to go sing! It was a pretty cool act of service... plus they fed us some nice, american food. I got a nice cold Dr. Pepper with some beef stew and potatoes. I also got a root beer and one of those delicious uncrustables pb&j sandwiches that I love so much. It was sooooo good. Plus it was cool to be around some americans.

So this past week we went and saw a MOVIE!! We went and watched Ender's Game. It was such a good movie! Have any of you seen it? I hadn't read the book so I didn't have any expectations for the movie except to just watch it and enjoy. I actually have the book in Romanian that I bought not too long ago. I'll read it eventually! So with the Christmas season our branch did sort of two activities for it. On Saturday we had an activity that was for all the branches in Buch. The missionaries sang carols and the members talked about the life of the savior. After all the singing then Santa Claus came and gave some presents to some of the kids. One thing that is pretty cool that I learned about Romanians is that when the kids go sit on Santa's lap they need to either sing a song or recite a poem in order to get something from Santa. Pretty cool if you ask me! Then the other thing that the branch did was on Sunday instead of having Sunday school we had like a Christmas meal! It was a pot luck sort of thing so everyone brought some food. It was pretty good!

I'm trying to take and send as many pictures as I can. I have a couple of pics to send but I will send those later this week. Ha ha yeah actually for Grigore it's more like going from St. George to Cedar. Or Beaver. Something like that. It was pretty fun to do an exchange with him.  Yeah President Hill sang the Fiddler on the Roof again when we were at the embassy. It was about as funny the second time as it was the first. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! CRACIUN FERICIT!!!

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

So here are a couple of pics for ya!

The first picture is me next to a car that is apparently from the states . . . not quite sure how it got here in Romania!

The next picture is with me, Knapp's MTC group, and a couple of other missionaries that just decided to get in the picture. I'm too lazy to write down everyone in the picture though. 

Monday, December 16, 2013
Dear Family!! 

Hello there everyone!!! Well I guess to start i'll just write a couple of things that happened this week. This week I did an exchange with an actual romanian!! It's the only romanian native missionary here in the whole mission. His name is Elder Grigore. The reason why we did the exchange is because he was in this area last transfer and there is this family that he was working with. Well since he still wanted to work with the family he got permission from Pres Hill to do exchanges with me so that he can still work with this family. I mean, Grigore is just on the other side of Buch so it's not like it is a major problem. The man of the family though (George) was at the hospital this past week so all we did was just visit him at the hospital. So I had my first chance to be in a hospital in Romania this past week! Definitely different than the hospitals back home. Actually I had the chance to go to two different hospitals. Once was with Grigore to meet with George, and then the other hospital we went to was to give a blessing to this kid named Christian. We got a call from one of the members asking us to come over and give a blessing to Christian. And the pair of elders they call is us who have no idea how to get around the city at all. But I mean it's for a blessing so we just head out with the vague directions we were given and just started to find the right hospital. After a little time (and much asking around for directions) we make it to the hospital. The sign on the hospital says "hospital for infectious diseases" . . . that's not a very promising place you want to go to. Especially because it's Romania. Who knows what different types of infectious diseases are here!! So we start walking in and of course the workers at the hospital kept telling us that we weren't allowed in because it was after visiting hours, but after telling them that we were there for a blessing they eventually let us in. That was nice. Then we go and give this sick little 7,8 year old kid a blessing. It was actually pretty cool. Then on Sunday I found out that the kid is back at home feeling a lot better. That was nice to hear too. On Saturday we had this little Christmas Concert that we put on as missionaries. We just got together at the chapel at Mihai Bravu and sang tons of Christmas carols. Elder Duker played the organ. President Hill got up and sang "If I were a Rich Man" from the Fiddler on the Roof. Not really Christmasy, but it was really entertaining to see my mission president with this big fake beard on, dancing around with a broomstick. And of course, Elder Knapp conducted the Choir and sang this awesome solo! Speaking of Elder Knapp, he is leaving back home this week. Today all of Buch had a lunch so that we all could see Elder Knapp and the rest of his MTC group leave. It was definitely weird saying goodbye to all of them and taking my last pictures with them. I will send them later this week! 

I'm glad you liked the pictures that I sent! Actually I'm waiting to get my suit until after Christmas because that's when the sales happen. You know, gotta shop smart and everything. Plus it's not like I'm really needing a suit before Christmas is over anyways. Speaking of Christmas...It's practically here!!! I'll be Skyping you guys soon enough!!! I think what we are trying to do is Skype in the evening time (meaning morning for you guys) on Christmas day. I don't really know the exact time though because I have to coordinate with my companion. I'll fill you guys in on the details of that later though. It sounds like Jourdan is doing great! I'm really glad to hear that he really loved his mission. It must be weird for him being home. Geez momma if you are crying about me now then I can only imagine how many gallons of tears are going to come when I meet you all at the airport! That'll be crazy! Sadly we aren't really teaching anyone. This week Elder Grigore and I are going to try and do an exchange again so that we can teach that one family. But hey the great news is that President Hill is letting us watch 2 movies for Christmas! Hobbit 2 anyone?! I'm not sure when but I'll be watching two movies during these holidays. That'll be fun!! Yeah make sure you keep me updated on that whole Skype account thingy. 

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! :) 

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

So here are a couple of pictures that I have taken!! 

The first one is just of me sitting on this little ledge thingy. Bucharest has these little river things going through it so I just took a picture next to one. 

The other picture is of my companion, Elder Duker, and I. This was at that Christmas festival where I ate those fish last year with Elder Knapp. I was going to eat the fish again but nobody there was selling them :( 

Elder Barney

Elder Barney and Elder Duker

Okay so after going to the Christmas festival thing we decided to go to this grocery store called Profi. The only reason why is because this new store opened up for the holidays that is made entirely of ice!! All the shelves and walls were ice!! 

And so just for fun I decided to lick the side of the store. It was pretty legit!! 

Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Dear Family!! 

So to start, I did get my packages!! I guess since I'm living here in Buch the office elders didn't bring my packages to transfers cause I would end up at the office eventually. So I got both of them! Plus I also got a package from the ward. We aren't doing the english classes this transfer due to the Christmas and New Year holidays.  We had our zone conference/mission christmas party this past week. It was actually pretty fun! We did a tie exchange, I got to hang out with a lot of missionaries, and also the missionaries who are going to be leaving soon got to go up and bear their testimonies (Elder Knapp and his whole awesome MTC group). It was crazy. This is Elder Knapp's last full week here in Romania. That's crazy!!! 

So speaking of those small sardine fish, I think later today we are going to go to that same place where I had them last year! I might have to get some! :)  So today we were doing our weekly shopping and we decided to get one of those fake little Christmas trees with some decorations. We have to be celebrating Christmas somehow!!! Translating is actually pretty fun. I mean obviously it would be a pain in the neck to go from English to Romanian. Hopefully I'll be able to do that but for now I'll just stick with going from Romanian to English.  Things with Elder Duker have been going good. We have had a lot of just random stuff to do so we haven't had a whole lot of time to be able to do like normal missionary work stuff. We have had bills to pay for multiple apartments, Christmas parties, activities, meetings, and stuff like that. It's great that we are busy though with stuff!!  Hey it was Elder Duker's birthday this past week!! It was on Saturday. I basically had no idea about it until the day before. I guess I just forgot to ask him when his birthday was before figuring it out the day before it happened. So that was pretty fun. I'll be sure to send you a picture this week with Elder Duker and I. One of my goals for this transfer is to take more pictures . . . cause I have been terrible about that. Anywho, Buch is a pretty cool city. It's really big and it's got a metro system. I love the metro. I remember going to New York City (without your permission) and just LOVING the metro system. So yeah Buch is cool. We can't really go into the malls to talk to people about the gospel, so usually we are just on the streets. If it gets too cold then we usually go into a block building with apartments and just try knocking on doors. I can't wait to be able to talk to you guys on Skype and stuff!!! :) 

oh and just so you know momma . . . I haven't unwrapped any of the packages that say "don't open till Christmas"

I love you all so so much!!! 

Monday, December 2, 2013
Dear Family!

Hello there everyone!! It's great to hear from you all again. This week has been pretty crazy training and being in a new city. It's kind of weird but cool at the same time. We are in a new city and the apartment that I am at was only moved into by the missionaries like a week before I did because the mission got new apartments. So the last missionaries didn't really give me any information about where to go for things or anything like that. The nice thing though is that we live right across from the church! That's nice. My companions name is Elder Duker from Iowa.  Basically some things I have found out about him is: he has studied latin since he was 10, he was homeschooled, he has a yeast allergy (so no breads!), and he is just pretty quiet most of the time.  For thanksgiving I didn't really do a whole lot of stuff. We had to go to the visa office to help my companion get a visa so that he can stay in the country. I didn't have any thanksgiving meal of any sort. The only cool thing that happened for Thanksgiving was that Pres Hill gave us permission to watch a movie. So all of the Buch missionaries got together and watched Monster's University. It was super super good!!! I can't really say it was better than Monsters Inc but it was still a really good and funny movie. I still haven't gotten the Thanksgiving package but I think that now that I'm in Buch I have to go to the office to see if there is any mail for me. So I will go and see sometime this week if there is a package for me. I'm glad to hear that all of you had a pretty fun Thanksgiving!! I'm glad to hear that Jourdan is back!! He sent me an email so I will have to see what he wrote. Tell him that I say hello when you go for his homecoming! 

Let's see what else is new . . . there was a cool activity here in Buch last saturday because sunday was the Independence Day of Romania. There was a cool party at one of the churches where there was lots of Romanian food and dancing. It was a lot of fun. Then on sunday we had church which was pretty good. It was pretty weird going to an actual chapel to go to church. Buch is one of the 3 cities in romania that has a chapel. It was pretty nice. For sacrament meeting I had to translate, which meant that I held a microphone in my hand and attempted to translate while the romanians were getting up and bearing their testimonies. There's a couple of people who don't know romanian so that's why we have to do the translations. It was pretty rough at some points but still pretty good. The best part about church though was after sunday school all the members gathered together in the chapel and then we all started singing the national anthem of Romania for their independence day. It was SUPER COOL!! 

I love you so so much!